UT student starts petition to reinstate Trayvon Martin cartoonist

A University of Texas student and former columnist for The Daily Texan has started an online petition calling for the artist behind a controversial cartoon published in the student newspaper last week to be reinstated.

Stephanie Eisner - Photo By Kolten Parker

Stephanie Eisner, a sophomore at UT, made national headlines with a cartoon and received criticism for using the term “colored.”

Eisner grew up near Houston in The Woodlands and is a Forty Acres scholar, a four-year merit scholarship funded through the Texas Exes alumni association. Eisner has been active in her community throughout her high school career including volunteer work for UNICEF. Read Eisner’s bio here.

Last month, Eisner spoke with the San Antonio Express-News on the issue of affirmative action and whether or not race should be considered during the admissions process.

“I think race should be considered because when a university accepts a student they are accepting more than a test score. I think many factors should be considered, but not necessarily equally. This situation could be compared to, for example, if a student says ‘well I didn’t have enough opportunities in my small town to be involved in extra-curricular activities.’ You can’t say that because everyone has to be looked at from where they are coming from,” Eisner said.

Samian Quazi started the petition on Change.org, a popular online platform for petitioning social issues. It has gained about 200 signatures since yesterday.

“Unfortunately, a minority within the campus community perceived racism within the cartoon itself and in the resultant controversy pressured the editorial staff to fire Eisner,” the petition reads. “Disappointingly, the editorial board complied to this vitriolic and narrow-minded minority and it removed Ms. Eisner from its staff.”

Quazi outlined his reasoning behind the petition on The Burnt Orange Report, a liberal blog in Austin. He also signed a petition on the website started by Martin’s mother calling to “Prosecute the killer of our son.”

The Daily Texan

The Daily Texan declined to comment, but they released this apology the day after the cartoon was published:

On Tuesday, a cartoon ran on the Opinion page of The Daily Texan that offended many readers, and we sincerely apologize for our decision to run it.

The cartoonist, Stephanie Eisner, no longer works for The Daily Texan.

However, the decision to run the cartoon showed a failure in judgment on the part of the editorial board. We have engaged in meaningful dialogue with many people who shared their concerns and outrage with us.

We made a mistake, and we understand that the outcome of our action extends beyond Tuesday’s cartoon and prompts us to reflect on a larger problem that persists at The Daily Texan and on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, something we should have done before Tuesday’s paper ran.

An expectation has developed over time at The Daily Texan that people will come to us with important issues. As a result, in recent years, we have failed to inject ourselves effectively into the University community.

This needs to change. This requires a fundamental shift in how we operate and will require us to actively engage with everyone in the community.

The Daily Texan will hold an open forum in the coming weeks to raise consciousness of race and diversity both at the Texan and on campus. We will require all Daily Texan employees to participate in a seminar each semester about the relationship between race and the media. We will also seek out and publish opinions that truly represent the views of the entire campus community. We understand these are only small steps in the much larger transformation we must undergo.

We sincerely apologize for publishing the offensive cartoon and for the harm that decision caused.